New Zealand Radio

Unprecedented times
What a time to hit on a long weekend

Have to agree, really informative on the night. I was switching between ZB & Today FM on Friday night and Today FM won hands down it did help having Brown Butterbean on obviously being well connected he got National Leader, Chris Luxon on air for a comment about the lack of a State of Emergency declaration at around 10pm when he rang during the show. Which happened just shortly before.

It was his show but they were his temporary co-hosts for the night.

Ah interesting. Good on them.

I have to give credit to Today/ZB, thought from what I heard over the last 48 hours they were across everything. RNZ wasn’t bad either and had some good “wins” with interview quotes going viral but I do feel they sometimes lack the common touch of a talkback station in these sort of events, but that’s probably just a personal preference.

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I thought Marcus was good but Today FM was more current - probably helped by the fact their hosts are Auckland based and were experiencing it, whereas Marcus couldn’t have been further away in Invercargill. Good callers on both stations, however.

I can remember recently we had a severe weather event in nth Canterbury snd our local station compass fm pulled an all nighter to keep locals updated
Which was worthwhile at the time

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So who thinks that the tvnz
Rnz merger is still happening articles on stuff
Suggest it will
Be scrapped

I think it’ll be gone - Hipkins intimated as much last week.

Would not be surprised if the two companies go through a slight restructuring to offset the cost of cancelling the merger

I will be uploading Newstalk ZB’s coverage of the flooding situation over the coming days. All audio will be found here once it has been uploaded:

My plans have somewhat changed. My intention is now to now cover up until Wednesday night, just in case the weather proves problematic again on Tuesday.

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Sad really. The merger was a genuine chance to make things better for broadcasting in this country.

TVNZ will continue to show reality dreck, while RNZ will be essentially ghettoised.

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I think you are far too optimistic about how the merger would have played out and the impact on programming/content.

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And you think the status quo is somehow acceptable?

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It’s pretty good!
Watched a couple of NZ documentaries on TVNZ+ over the weekend, streamed their news bulletins both nights and got stuck into the acclaimed new show Poker Face. Didn’t watch any reality “dreck”.

RNZ’s broadcasting style is not really my thing but I listened to a bit and thought they did a good job of covering the floods and gave people the information they needed to know. So yeah, pretty happy with the status quo.

A merger would not have all of a sudden meant Checkpoint replaced The Chase on TVNZ+ or more arts/culture instead of Celebrity Treasure Island.

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It seems you have no ambition for media content in this country. I want wall to wall docos on TVNZ, and the merger is the only way that we can get this.

The best time for broadcasting in this country was pre-deregulation, when media was focused on delivering public service content, without having to make a profit.

I have been trawling through the various archived TVNZ programs online lately, and the content back then knocks todays content out of the park. Even during the dark days of the 1990’s, there was at least an attempt to put together decent current affairs content.

Private sector media entities are jumping up and down about a huge expansion of state media in this country, and they need to ask themselves what value do they really have to offer, beyond reality dreck on TV, and repetitive playlists on radio.

And do you think it is acceptable for TV1 to be force feeding informercials at night. Surely there needs to be a place on broadcast TV where people arent been sold something.

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I’d love to have a full service public broadcaster but in a digital world and world where media has been death by a thousand cuts, I’d rather be a realist than in fantasy land.

That would not happen with a merger. I don’t know how simpler I can say this. TVNZ would not become PBS or whatever. It would not be 24/7 docos. The amount of funding that would take is beyond the scope TVNZ/a government would invest.

Even public broadcasters need to show a mix of content that people want to watch.

I miss shows like Assignment. But audiences and audience interests have changed as well.

Doesn’t worry me. I would just watch something on TVNZ+ or another streamer.

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I agree with you. I miss 60 Minutes and other programme types on television, such as (although, from my perspective, there are only a few):

  • investigative journalism
  • documentaries
  • children’s television
  • ‘kidult’ or family drama
  • political debates
  • quiz/game shows
  • chat shows
  • lifestyle television (including programmes for people aged 50+)
  • regional news and current affairs
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I think the govt were trying to model tvnz and rnz on the model
Used by the likes of abc in Australia or bbc uk
Could have been good if they had quality programming on the service

Maybe one day but with people using streaming tv and spotify etc would they have the audience for it
Anyway

Linear broadcast TV is going to be around for a while. I dont think everyone is just going to move over to spotify or YouTube. For a start, for analog radio and digital TV, you dont need to have a data plan or be tied to an internet connection, and people just generally want to sit down and blob out in front of the TV, and not have to scroll through Netflix looking for something to watch. Same with music. I have about 400 CD’s in my collection, and probably a whole s***load of MP3’s. Yet if I want to listen to music, I would turn on Magic, mainly because I dont want to spend hours and hours going through my personal collection.

Anyway, even if this merger fails to go ahead, there needs to be some sort of discussion around the futire of RNZ and TVNZ

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I’m sure there will be, especially if the other mob gets in in October - and I’m sure it’s not going to be in the way you want it to go.

And even the merger wouldn’t have provided that. Even Labour were still only proposing about NZ$90m a year in operating costs, which is roughly what RNZ and TVNZ were getting prior to the pandemic - so it’s not like there is suddenly going to be room for anything new that’s totally non-commercial. Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if those on the RNZ side are worried that National and Concert might end up ad-riddled like TVNZ - certainly the type of pride that our ABC (for better or worse) has.

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RNZ’s output remains completely protected from advertising , that much is confirmed.

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